Stuck With You
by Lizzy Lovegood
Summary: Rose is distraught after the loss of Mickey and her alternate parents in the parallel world and Jackie is reluctant to let her go again. Will the Doctor be forced to choose between Rose and the stars? Set directly after Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel.
1. Goodbye

**Disclaimer: **Sadly, I do not own Doctor Who. Even more sadly, Moffat does.

**A/N: **I originally planned for this to be a one-shot but the plot kinda got away from me so it's going to be a two- or three-shot instead.

_Allons-y!_

**. . .**

**Stuck With You**

**Part One: Goodbye**

"Doctor."

Starting at the unexpected intrusion – and striking his head on the underside of the control panel in the process – the Doctor peeked out from under the console to meet the fierce glare of Jackie Tyler. Arms folded across her chest, a stance familiar from his and Rose's past arguments, she stood just inside the TARDIS entryway. Glare fixed firmly on the Doctor she appeared supremely unimpressed by the inner dimensions of the time ship. Oh, he was _not _looking forward to this.

The Doctor smiled sheepishly – not entirely sure what he had to feel sheepish about but Jackie had a way of making him feel like he had done _something _wrong – and, rubbing the bump on his head with one hand, offered a little wave with the other – one which Jackie did not return. Oh yes, this was going to be bad.

"Go on, then, get your arse out here," she ordered, retreating to the sitting room with the confidence that he would follow. The Doctor did.

"What is it?" he asked rather impatiently, bouncing in his seat. "I'll have you know you interrupted me while I was busy fixing this – you know what, I won't waste my time explaining, it'd only confuse you . . . but it's _very _important and unless you want to have to call the fire department again. . . . But the toaster _really _wasn't my fault, the twenty-first century models are just so _primitive_."

Jackie only glared.

"Oh, come on, Jackie. You can't _still _be holding a grudge about that. And I haven't even done anything this time, just been in the TARDIS, fixing a few things up. She's a bit busted up after the trip the parallel world but. . . ."

"Parallel world?" Jackie echoed. "_What _parallel world?"

"Rose didn't tell you about that?" The Doctor arched an eyebrow in surprise. "Huh."

"_Huh_?" Jackie hissed and, though her voice was barely above a whisper, her trembling hands belied her true anger. "That's all you have to say – _huh_? You bring my Rose back more upset than I've seen her in years and she won't tell me squat about it. At least when Jimmy. . . ."

"Jimmy?"

"You mean she hasn't told you. . . . Well, I guess that's something _I _know and _you _don't, Mr. Time Lord. 'Sides, I'm not mad at _him _right now, am I? I'm mad at you" - the Doctor winced - "you, who disappear into your ship for two days – two _bloody _days, Doctor – and leave me to deal with a daughter who can't get a decent sleep without having nightmares – and won't tell me a _damn _thing about them." Jackie's voice broke and she buried her face in her hands for a second; at a loss for words, the Doctor leaned forward to place a tentative hand on her shoulder, but she batted it away.

"You told me you'd _protect _her, Doctor," she managed finally, sniffing deeply.

"I know, Jackie. I – I tried. . . ." It was a sorry excuse and they both knew it; he didn't even flinch when her hand flew out to slap him across the face.

"You _tried_? Here you are, a Lord of Time, and all you did was _try_?"

"I couldn't. . . ."

"What couldn't you do, Doctor? _What?_"

"Well. . . ." The Doctor ran an agitated hand through his hair, wondering why he hadn't locked the TARDIS door. He winced at the second slap.

"Don't you _well _me! And don't you tell me I'm not smart enough to understand your complicated alien explanation either. I know enough. I know that you drop Rose off every week or every month or every six months – whenever you feel like it, anyway – an' that sometimes you hang around an' sometimes you don't. S'pose I'm funny to you, with my daytime telly and my microwave meals. . . . Doesn't matter. I know you make my Rose smile, not that fake just-for-pictures smile but _smile_, and that's what's important.

"But this – I can't take this anymore . . . because when you lot come home I know, I _know_, when something's gone on you don't wanna tell me about 'cause it's not some weird alien food or shop or somethin' where you bring me back a souvenir. All I ever hear of the dangerous stuff is when it's knocking on my own front door and when you go off again I'm stuck worrying that maybe next time you won't come back at all, maybe nex' time I'll just be stuck wondering, never knowing for sure one way or t'other. And this time . . . I don't know _where_ you were, I don't know _what_ happened to Mickey, I don't know _how_ close you two came and I'm not even sure I want to, but I _need _to, alright? Because right now, she isn't smiling; right now, she is more upset than I thought you _ever_ had the right to make her and I need to know _why_." Jackie paused in her spiel to take a deep breath, appearing to steel herself for something, and that scared the Doctor more than any threat she could have made.

"And if you can't tell me – _won't _tell me – then you go disappear back into your blue box again 'cause she won't be going with you."

The Doctor swallowed thickly, made an attempt at a scornful scoff. "Jackie, Rose is a grown woman. She is more than capable. . . ."

"And I am her mother." Her tone left no room for argument and the Doctor didn't try to. He knew she was right (though he would never admit to it in so many words), knew she deserved to know all of it, every last detail of the parallel world and pre-revolutionary France and Queen Victoria's possible lycanthropy because she was Rose's mother and she was oh, so human and there was that ever-present, so human, so _amazing _bond that parents and children on this wonderfully insane world shared. She deserved to know that he was keeping his promise even when he wasn't.

Because he couldn't always protect her. That was the problem. And there were only so many pleasure planets they could visit before Rose began to get suspicious; she missed the running as much as he did. No matter that it felt like a betrayal every time they raced down ancient, echoing halls or across strangely-colored sands, some dangerous creature in hot pursuit; it was so easy to ignore when Rose was grinning at him, hair blowing in her face, and he couldn't help but grin back. He convinced himself that her happiness and her safety did not have to be mutually exclusive, convinced himself that they could go on like this forever.

But no matter how hard he tried – no matter how many times he warned her not to wander off, no matter how tightly he held to her hand – there was always _something_. He couldn't protect her from his own idiocy and arrogance, couldn't protect her from the heartache of losing first her faux-family in that other world and one of the closest things she had had to family in this. She wasn't always safe with him and what if, when he told – _told_, it sounded like such an infantile term, a child tattling on their friend, but when Jackie gave him _that _look, it made him feel like one – it turned out that Rose's happiness and safety were not mutually exclusive only in those radiant moments of running but back in this very flat at the Powell Estate, working in the shop and eating beans on toast?

It was easier to bury himself in TARDIS repairs and technical tomes than to even consider such a possibility yet here it was anyway, staring him in the face, impossible to brush off with another trip to the universe's largest shopping mall or spa. Not when there might not be any such trips again, leisurely or otherwise, if the look Jackie was fixing him with was any indication.

With that ultimatum, what choice did he really have?

The words spilled from the Doctor's lips as an altogether separate sense of betrayal overwhelmed him. Rose would hate him for this. Part of him, the strictly selfish part, hated himself and wanted to shout and storm out – Rose gathered in his arms – when Jackie told him she wanted him gone in the morning.

But this is what's best for her, even if she doesn't realize it yet. She deserves a normal life, a _fantastic _life, with a fantastic bloke, the kind who will remember all the holidays and birthdays and anniversaries, the kind with whom happiness and safety are one and the same and who she will smile as radiantly at as she once smiled at that strange man_ –_ his faces, both of them, fading in her memory now – who took her hand and called himself _the Doctor_.

He missed that smile and, when he crept down the corridor later that night – careful not to wake Jackie, snoring in the next room – he told himself it was just to see if he could catch one last glimpse of it, tugging at the corners of her lips as she slept.

It was a feeble hope. All that was to be found were wadded tissues scattered across the bedspread and dried tear-tracks on her cheeks. The Doctor hovered at the foot of the bed, shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, knowing full well that he needed to touch her – tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, brush a hand across her cheek, wrap his arms around her, his own Rose-sized teddy bear – or he would go crazy and knowing full well that he couldn't. Because if he touched her she would wake – such a thing was inevitable in situations such as this – and if she woke, he would have to tell her goodbye, and if he had to tell her goodbye, he wouldn't be able to resist hinting that _maybe _this wasn't goodbye for good, that he _might _come back, and that was not good – very, _very _not good – not when it would give them both false hope. No, goodbyes made things too difficult.

The Doctor sighed and turned to leave – if he didn't now, he never would – wincing as the floorboards creaked under his feet and the sleeping form on the bed stirred under the coverlet. Self-sabotage – his prayers for her to sense him, for her to cry out for him in the throes of a nightmare, for something, _anything _to stop him from leaving this room, leaving her life forever – or just plain coincidence, as was inevitable in situations such as these, he wasn't sure. (He thanked any deities that might be listening nonetheless.)

Still as a statue, he watched her rub her hands into her eyes – red and puffy from tears – and sit up slightly, searching for the catalyst of the creak and spotting his familiar form.

"Doctor?"

He should let her think this was just another dream – another nightmare where the Doctor didn't answer her call – and when she fell back to sleep, he would sneak out again, more quietly this time. If he said something now, he would have to make conversation – no matter that it was two in the morning, they had debated Disney movies at quarter of three before – prolong this torture with his witty quips and anecdotes, all in the knowledge that when he said _goodnight _it meant _goodbye_. He couldn't lie to her and he couldn't tell her the truth: goodbyes made things too difficult. He shouldn't say anything, really.

"Rose."

**. . .**

**A/N: **Let me know what you thought in a review! I'm kinda nervous about how I wrote Jackie and the Doctor's interaction, so I'd love to hear your opinions on it. :)

I will be updating **Domestics **with another chapter or two before this because those have been bugging me to be written. Unfortunately, I've had the flu for the past week-and-a-half so I'm just getting to them now. Ick.


	2. Goodnight

**A/N: **So I finally got time to write the next chapter! Thank God for slow days at work. :)

Hope you like it!

_Allons-y!_

**. . .**

**Part Two: Goodnight**

"I thought you left."

"Nah." As though of their own volition, the Doctor found his legs guiding him toward the bed – _right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot –_ and he perched himself on the edge of it. Rose scooted her feet up to make room for him, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees and surveying him silently. The Doctor knew that look, knew she was expecting a better explanation than this simple negation.

"Just tinkering," he said. "That last trip really took the mi . . . er, really tired her out." He caught himself just in time but the pain in her eyes said she had heard the unspoken syllables loud and clear. The last time the Doctor could remember seeing her this forlorn, he had been all big ears and leather; they had been in 1987 and she had held her father's hand while he died.

"But you're done now?" she asked, sounding so uncertain that the urge to envelop her in his arms and apologize over and over for letting her think he had abandoned her when he would never do that, not in a million years, was almost insurmountable. _Almost_. After all, wouldn't he be doing that very thing in a few minutes' time? (He couldn't stand the few hours, not with her sitting right here and Jackie fast asleep in the other room, not when it would be so easy to take her and never look back.) Even to imagine that look of betrayal, when she realized that not only had he left her, he had _lied _about it – and all for his own selfish needs – sent a shudder of revulsion coursing through him. If it had been any other woman, at any other time, he would have laughed; he could face down an army of Cybermen but the very thought of a distressed Rose Tyler haunted him.

"Yep!" he said instead, popping the _p _the way she liked, hoping to coax a smile out of her. Still, her lips remained downturned, her eyes sad. "Good to go! _Well_, I say good to go but you can stay as long as you'd like. You and Jackie must have a lot to catch up on . . . when's the last time we were here, anyway?"

Rose shrugged. "S'alright, Mum and I talked while you were holed up in the TARDIS. She has a new bloke now, did you know? Ralph, I think his name is. He seems alright from what she says. And . . . ooh, Bev's daughter's pregnant and I guess she's _huge_." She forced a laugh, and the Doctor was quick to follow.

"'Course, she asked about Mickey but I didn't tell her anything about . . . well, anything. Thought it would just worry her, you know?" She ducked her head when he went to meet her eyes, refusing to look at him.

The same as that sunny day in 1987, when she had swiped away tears, muttering apologies to the grating – for saving her father, for letting him die (whether she meant her father or himself, the Doctor wasn't sure), for being a _stupid ape_ – till he wrapped his arms around her, shushing her when she made to push him away, holding her until the shuddering had stopped and the tears dried on her cheeks. The Doctor only wished it were an option this time around, but once his arms closed around her he knew he would never have the strength to let go. And he would have to let go – just like he always had to – in the end. Jackie was right, his presence in her life did more harm than good.

It wasn't like Rose was a stranger to loss. Her father's absence had shaped her entire life, made her into the brilliant woman she was. But it was the Doctor – so full of pride and arrogance that she had chosen to travel with _him _that he could show her _anything _in the world – who had forced her to watch Pete Tyler die, not just to die but to go willingly to death after she had risked the fabric of time itself to save him. He should have warned her, should have known that someone like Rose couldn't just stand there and let it happen. Arms wrapped around her shuddering shoulders, he swore that he would never make her feel like this again – never _let_ her feel like this again.

Another promise he had broken.

The Doctor understood the lure of a parallel world – a place where the tiniest of choices could diverge into an entirely different string of events – and would be lying if he said he hadn't speculated over some where there was no Doctor, only John Smith and his girlfriend (John Smith has no problem with the term – is, in fact, proud to brag about it to anyone who will listen) Rose Tyler. More importantly, he understood the temptation it held for Rose, a world where Pete Tyler was not only alive but rich and famous and, by all appearances, happily married to Jacqueline Tyler. The only thing missing was a daughter.

Logically, he knew she wouldn't stay – not with Jackie, alone, in their world, even if his warnings were not enough to deter her – but couldn't stop himself from shouting after her, voice tinged with panic, wanting nothing more than to lock her up in the TARDIS until they had left this world far, far behind. But now she was the one leaving him behind, and what other choice did he have but to follow?

He listed them later, alone in the console room, all these other choices, a catalogue of his sins: He could have kept her in the TARDIS, could have refused to visit the Tyler mansion in the first place, could have insisted she stay at his side rather than going off with Pete. He saw it all in his head, how this would go. She would have told him that he had, after all, left her in France and wasn't this just a _bit _hypocritical and he would tell her that no, it certainly wasn't, because her judgment obviously couldn't be trusted when it came to one Pete Tyler. It was a remark designed to wound, but at least it would have hurt less than this.

There was no hug this time, she shied away when he moved to wrap his arms around her, hurrying down the hall to her bedroom. The Doctor had to grip the edge of the console to stop himself from tearing after her. It wasn't like he would have anything to say, would only be able to hover anxiously on the edge of the bed, a doctor examining his patient, mouth working soundlessly as he searched for the right words. Alternate parents or not, they had certainly resembled the real Jackie and Pete – _Rose's _Jackie and Pete – and to suffer the death of one and outright rejection from the other was sure to be painful. He understood, but never had he felt more alien.

What was he supposed to say, a man only human on the outside, a man whose only relations with his parents had been formal and perfunctory? A man, moreover, who had put her in this mess in the first place?

Mickey would know. Hard as it was to admit, the Doctor knew it was true. They had grown up together after all, he had known Jackie and even Pete for a short while, he had (even harder to admit) dated Rose. Idiot he may be, but he understood what it was like to lose family. More importantly, he knew _Rose_, better than the Doctor ever would.

But Mickey was gone now. They were all gone and it was just the Doctor and Rose again – what he had wanted all along – and there was nothing to do but steer them home, back to the Powell Estates, back to Jackie. If he couldn't do anything else, at least he could give her this, stop her from losing this last person even if it meant losing him in the process.

"Where to next, then?" Rose asked, clearing her throat. "You must be going stir-crazy here." The corners of her lips twitched in a sad attempt at a smile.

"I'm alright," the Doctor lied. Maybe if he said it enough it would become true. "I just think. . . . You can stay as long as you need to, Rose."

"What about you?" She was still speaking to her sheets, but he could see the furrow between her brows.

"Well. . . ." He clenched his fingers in the bedspread, resisting the urge to pull on his ear, a nervous tic she had long grown to recognize as the telltale sign of a lie. "I have a few spare parts to pick up, I used the last in the TARDIS repairs and if something happens . . . _well_, don't want to end up stranded, do we? And not like your – your _Robinson Crusoe_, either, can't just a build a raft in outer-space. . . . Of course, there are a few planets that do, they go out there in crews, fish for stars, but – _but _they're mostly pirates. Very dangerous, wouldn't want to take you there, definitely not. No-"

"Doctor."

"Yep?"

"Can you just . . . be quiet for a second?"

"Oh. Right. Yes, sorry." The Doctor moved one hand to rub at his neck and jumped when Rose reached for the other.

"Sorry, I. . . ."

"No. No, it's fine. It's _fine_." It wasn't fine, not in the least, not when every second in her presence reminded him of the lack of it that was soon to come. But he couldn't cut himself off from her like that – couldn't do that to her, couldn't do that to himself, not when her hand in his felt so warm and comforting.

"I missed you, you know," said Rose. Her gaze moved upward, to their entwined fingers. "Didn't really think about it when I was with Mum, but . . . suppose the babbling brought it all back." Her lips twitched again, a more genuine smile this time, but it faded when the Doctor stayed silent.

"Guess she told you, then."

"Told me what?" the Doctor asked, trying to hide the note of panic in his voice and failing miserably.

"And now you're running scared."

"Told me _what_?" The Doctor's mouth was bone-dry, he swallowed hard over a lump in his throat.

Rose only shook her head. "Please don't lie. Do anything else, leave if you want, but _please _don't lie."

"I'm not leaving." The Doctor was hardly aware of saying the words, but the moment they were out, he knew they were true. He wouldn't let her lose someone else, even if that someone else was a Time Lord used to traveling from the sixteenth century to the fifty-sixth at a moment's notice, even if that Time Lord had to buy a house with windows and carpets and they shared the mortgage. It was impossible to imagine, but equally impossible was a life without Rose in it. Was there really any other choice?

At long last, Rose tilted her head up, meeting his eyes with her own bloodshot pair. She took a deep breath, patted the spot next to her.

"Will you stay?"

He brushed a hand across her cheek, scooted up so that his back was against the headboard. "I'm not leaving."

**. . .**

**A/N: **My muse switched things up on me again, so now this is most likely going to be four chapters. Hurray!

Let me know what you thought in a review!


	3. Good-morning

**A/N: **The penultimate chapter. Hope you guys like it. :)

_Allons-y!_

**. . .**

**Part Three: Good-morning**

The Doctor dished the scrambled eggs onto three plates and, pulling on a pair of pink oven mitts, bent to take out a tray of freshly-baked cinnamon rolls right as the timer rang. Beaming broadly, he turned to face the table – newspaper opened to the funnies, _check_; ketchup (it made the Doctor gag, but Rose couldn't eat her eggs without it), _check_; Rose's morning cuppa with two sugars and just a splash of milk, _check _– and a very dissatisfied-looking Jackie Tyler.

"Doctor."

"Oh, good morning, Jackie," the Doctor chirped. "Tea?"

"Doctor," Jackie repeated, tongue slipping slowly over the syllables as if by doing so she could sound out the answer. "What are you doing here?"

"Making breakfast," said the Doctor. "I would think that would be fairly obvious. One sugar or two?"

Jackie stayed stock-still in the doorway, her only move to cross her arms over her chest. She glared at the Doctor and he raised his hands in mock-surrender.

"Alright, I used the toaster earlier, but it was just for, you know, _toasting_. _One _slice of bread. And I haven't touched it since. So I made these instead. Look!" He held the tray of cinnamon rolls up for her inspection, wafting the scent of them toward her with one mitted hand and frowning when her expression remained unchanged.

"No? Not to worry, we have scrambled eggs, too. Scrambled eggs with _cheese_."

"Doctor, you _promised _me."

"And there's some fruit salad in the fridge. Lots of cantaloupe. I know that's Rose's favorite. That, and raspberries. Pink and yellow, that's how I remember 'em. _Well_, suppose cantaloupe isn't really yellow, it's more _orange-y _but. . . ."

"What's my favorite?" asked Rose, wandering into the kitchen.

"Cantaloupe?" The Doctor spoke over his shoulder, taking a Saran-wrapped bowl from the refrigerator and placing it on the table. "It is, isn't it?" he asked anxiously.

"Yeah, ta." Rose grabbed a spoon from the dish drainer to place in the bowl. "Ooh, Doctor, did you _make _those? They smell gor-gorg-gorgeous." She nodded toward the tray of rolls cooling on the counter, her last word nearly lost in a gigantic yawn.

"You still look tired, sweetheart," Jackie moved to Rose's side, resting a hand on her arm. "It's still early. Why don't you go on back to bed for a little while?"

"Nah, I'm alright. More hungry than anything, I think." Rose snagged a roll from the tray, sticking her tongue out at the Doctor when he swatted good-naturedly at her hand. "Doctor, are you wearing oven mitts?"

"Yep!" He stripped one off, wiggling his fingers.

"_Pink _oven mitts?"

The Doctor pouted. "I won't have you questioning my fashion sense, Rose Tyler. I happen to think these go very well with my suit."

Rose nibbled on her bottom lip, considering. "Mm, you might be right. I think an apron would really tie the whole thing together, though. What do you think, Mum?"

"Oh, yes!" The Doctor mimed tying an apron over his pinstripes and puckered his lips. "Come on, then, Rose Tyler, kiss the cook. Ehm, I mean. . . ." Rose's face flushed and she became suddenly interested in the grain of the wooden countertop; even with his eyes averted from Jackie's, the Doctor could tell she was shooting daggers.

The words had spilled out before he could stop himself, nothing but a childish urge to distract Rose from Jackie and stave off the inevitable conversation that was to follow – where Jackie asked what he was still doing here and when he was leaving and what he meant by all this in the first place – because maybe, if he did domestics for long enough, she would realize he wasn't so bad to have around after all, that he could play stay-at-home Doctor if that was what Rose needed him to be, if that kept her safe and smiling and at his side. Always at his side.

"I'm – I just meant . . . Rose, I. . . ." The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "I just. . . ."

Crossing the few steps to his side, Rose stood on tiptoe to peck his cheek. He could smell cinnamon on her breath. She smiled at him. "Don't push your luck, Time Lord."

Releasing a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, the Doctor smiled back. "Yes, sir."

"Are we going to eat this lot before it gets cold or what?" asked Jackie, scooping a spoonful of fruit salad onto her plate. Grabbing a second sticky bun, Rose moved to join her, leaving the Doctor leaning against the refrigerator, calculating how long it would take Jackie to corner him and counting down the seconds until that inevitable conversation.

**. . .**

Breakfast was a tense affair.

"Seen any good films lately, Jackie? Rose and I skipped forward a few years a while back, saw the newest Disney flick – _Frozen_. Brilliant, that was." He grinned when Rose hummed the chorus to "Let It Go" under her breath.

"Nope."

"Speaking of frozen, the weather's finally warming up, hmm? Last time we were here there was still snow on the ground."

"I hear it's supposed to snow next week."

"Well, that's alright. So long as you have someone to cuddle up with, right?" The Doctor took Rose's hand under the table, waggling his eyebrows. "How's old Ralph doing by the – by the. . . ." He broke off at Jackie's thunderous expression.

"How did _you _know about Ralph? I've only been with 'im a week."

Taking a large bite of sticky bun, the Doctor turned to Rose, swallowing with difficulty. "I thought we might go to the park today. Your park, I mean – the Earth park. This Earth, not New Earth. Enjoy the nice weather while it lasts. The TARDIS can pack us a picnic lunch. Or – or I can. The TARDIS has enough to do, recuperating and. . . ."

"I told him, Mum." Rose laid an apologetic hand on her mother's arm. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you wanted it kept secret. Are you and him – are you two . . . OK?"

"When?"

"What?"

"When did you tell him, Rose? Because I just told _you _two days ago and you haven't seen himself," she pointed an accusatory finger at the Doctor, "since. Have you?"

"Mum. . . ."

"Don't you _Mum_ me, Rose Tyler. Was he with you last night or wasn't he?" Despite the fierce glare, it was impossible to miss the hurt in her eyes.

"Jackie. . . ."

"And don't you _Jackie _me, either! If you're going to get up to your – your alien _things_, do it in your own bloody ship, not my daughter's bedroom."

Rose's face flushed and she sent her mother a pleading look. "Mum, we're not like that. You _know _we're not like that."

"I don't know, do I?" Fork falling from her hand, Jackie threw up her hands in frustration, and the Doctor winced at the sound it made, clattering against the china plate. "One second you're heartbroken and the next you're acting like nothing ever happened. The pair of you." There was something approaching pity in her voice.

"Forget it." Sighing, long and irritated, Rose turned on her heel and headed for the door, wrapping her dressing gown more firmly about herself with a forceful jerk. "I'm an adult, I don't need to sit here and explain myself to you. Come on, Doctor."

The Doctor half-rose from his chair, darting helpless glances back and forth between the two women. Some part of his mind was sure he looked ridiculous – frozen between standing and sitting, eyes wide and frightened – but, panic flooding him, he couldn't bring himself to care. He could barely think straight as it was. It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

Granted, this wasn't supposed to happen at all. Still, he would deal with it, _was _dealing with it. He would make a picnic lunch and they would go to the park and there would be other days just like this, he and Rose in a flat of their own, days filled with home-cooked meals and movie marathons and cuddling together on cold, winter nights. It would be just like back on the TARDIS, things would go a bit slower was all. It wasn't like Rose would have to go back to working in the shop, he had loads of money stored up under various pseudonyms, and they could spend their spare time traveling the world. It was the excuse Rose used for her long absences anyway, and the Doctor had always wanted to try aeroplane travel. It might be primitive compared to the TARDIS, but you couldn't beat the peanuts.

"Doctor." Rose stood in the doorway, arms crossed and brow furrowed. "Come on. Let's go to that New Earth park you mentioned."

The Doctor opened his mouth – to whisper _run_, to shout _Allons-y_, something, anything to escape this – only to shut it again. His fingers twitched with the urge to grab hers, as though missing the one, vital piece that made them whole, protesting when he clamped his hand around the back of the chair instead.

"Rose." His voice came out in a croak, and he cleared his throat before trying again. "Rose, it's not a big deal. I'm sure we can," he turned imploringly to Jackie, then back to Rose, "work this out."

"No, we really can't." Something close to a whimper echoed in the silence that settled between the three, and it took the Doctor a second to realize he had been the one to make it. Rose sighed and uncrossed her arms. "Look, Doctor, I know this is important to you – me being human, visiting Mum an' all that – but I just need a breather, alright?"

"Wasn't this _supposed_ to be a breather?" The Doctor stood up to his full height, running a hand through his hair, frustrated.

"This?" Rose threw her hands up, looking so eerily similar to Jackie for a moment that the Doctor flinched. "Oh, no. Don't you try and pin this on me. _This _was just you making decisions for me again."

"Well, I didn't see you complaining," the Doctor snapped back, unable to stop himself. Rose flinched. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jackie glaring at him. He sighed. "Rose, we. . . ."

"Forget it," she said again. "Just forget it, alright? Let's just go."

"Rose. . . ."

"We'll see you in a couple of days, Mum."

"Rose," the Doctor repeated, more insistently this time, "Rose, we can't."

"Why's that, then?" Rose's crossed arms returned to her chest, shutting herself off from him. "I thought you said she was good to go."

The few feet between seemed an eternity, but somehow the Doctor found the strength to cross it. He reached out a hand, leaving it hovering foolishly in midair, a few centimeters above her left shoulder when she shied away.

"You said she was good to go, Doctor."

"I know."

"Were you planning on leaving by yourself, then?"

"No." She had barely finished speaking before he spat out the word. "I told you," he continued in a gentler tone, "I'm not leaving. It's just. . . ."

_I promised your mother._

No matter how sound his reasoning, no matter how ironclad Jackie's ultimatum, when Rose looked at him like that, it all fell to pieces. Rose was n adult, quite capable of making her own decisions; Jackie was nothing more than the overprotective mother, forbidding her child from going out to play with the naughty neighbor boy. Such a silly, flimsy excuse, really, easily torn away to reveal the truth beneath.

"Just . . . it's not . . . Rose, I. . . ." Clenching his hand around nothing, the Doctor floundered for words.

"What, Doctor?"

"He promised me he'd keep you safe," said Jackie. She spoke simply and succinctly, but from her tone the Doctor could tell she was readying herself for a fight.

Rose sighed. "He _does _keep me safe, Mum. _I _keep me safe, come to that. What does that have to do with anything?"

"He didn't this time."

"He tried his best! It's not like – it wasn't his . . . hang on, how did. . . . Did you. . . ?"

The Doctor didn't need to answer, it was there in the slump of his shoulders and the twist of his mouth and the way his eyes darted anxiously to Rose's own – filled with the betrayal he had been so terrified of causing, of facing – that he was only able to meet them for a moment before casting them down again.

He wanted to run but, just like last night, his feet stayed glued to the floor, refusing to let him. Conversation buzzed around him, Jackie's voice growing steadily more gentle while Rose's increased in pitch, nonsense words that coiled in the air like smoke, making it dense and difficult to breathe.

"Doctor?" His name on her lips called him back, just as it always did. Lifting his head with difficulty, he stared at her with wide eyes.

"Yes." It was more statement than question, a declaration of his presence.

"Is it true?" He stayed silent and she continued, voice shaking, "Did Mum ask you to leave?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You were in danger. Unnecessary danger. Too much danger, Rose. Every day. That isn't. . . . I'll stay. I'll stay, Rose. I'm not leaving. I'm not. I _won't_." He stood his ground, poker-straight, unblinking.

Rose shook her head, reached up to grasp the hand tugging at his ear. "Don't lie to me, Doctor." The anger was gone from her voice now, complete and utter resignation left in its' place, as though part of her had expected this all along, and suddenly the Doctor wished she was shouting again.

The apology he muttered to the kitchen tiles was left unheard as Rose's bedroom door shut behind her.

**. . .**

**A/N: **Oh, the angst. :( Next chapter should clear things up for Rose and the Doctor. I'm also really not good at writing sad stuff chapter after chapter, so the next (last!) one has to be the resolution/fluff. :)

I will be working on the last chapter (tentatively titled **Good-luck**) over the weekend and hopefully I upload it sooner than this. I've been reading fic more than I've been writing it lately, haha.

Leave a review and let me know what you thought!


	4. Good-luck

**A/N: **Here is the (actual) penultimate chapter. :) They needed this one to work things out, next one should be more fluff. Hope you enjoy!

_Allons-y!_

**. . .**

**Part Four: Good-luck**

If the Doctor had been in a boastful mood, he would have been proud of his self-restraint.

Every instinct screamed at him to go after Rose – to sonic the lock and wrap her in his arms (their last proper hug they'd had was back in the parallel world, before she lost her other mother, her other father, Mickey) and sorting this whole thing out – whatever it was she had misunderstood. Granted, he probably should have asked first before spilling the beans to Jackie, but that was hardly the crux of the issue. He was still staying, wasn't he? That, more than anything, should prove his loyalty to her. How could she possibly think otherwise?

But if he went in there now, just as frustrated and confused as she, it would only make things worse. He needed time to calm himself, to marshal his thoughts and construct them into a rational argument. Perching himself on the sofa, jaw tense and shoulders rigid, he tried.

He half-expected Jackie to force him out, had in fact prepared a contingency plan for that very situation (scaling the drain pipe and climbing in through her bedroom window; Rose being so impressed by his grand gesture that she would accept his reasoning without question) and could feel her watching him from the doorway. Several long minutes later, he heard the clatter of dishes and the open and shut of the fridge as she cleared the table and when she threw on a jacket, closing the front door behind her without a passing word (or threat) to the Doctor, he took it as tacit permission to stay.

The TV remote lay next to him on the sofa. The Doctor picked it up, flicked it on, flipping through channels – the coming week's weather (Jackie had been right, it was supposed to snow), a game-show contestant guessing at the cost of a pack of crisps, a soap opera husband revealing he had had an affair with his soap opera wife's long-lost twin – mind racing. He watched the soap for a little while – it was one Rose asked the TARDIS to record for her because, as she explained to the scoffing Doctor, it was one of Jackie's favorites – and he briefly wondered if he should let her know it was on before sighing and shutting it off.

It had been a half-hour.

Years could pass the Doctor by in the blink of an eye, yet this thirty minutes, eighteen-hundred seconds, one-million-eight-hundred-thousand milliseconds was interminable. Symbolic or not, his planned five-and-a-half was out of the question.

Pathetic as it sounded, he couldn't remember the last time she had been angry with him for this long. Then again, their _fights _usually consisted of who had eaten the last biscuit (the Doctor) and whose turn it was to pick that night's film (Rose's). Even after that terrible shouting-match in 1987, he had been back by her side in ten minutes' time (_maybe _fifteen if there hadn't been any Reapers and her TARDIS key hadn't felt so heavy in his hand) and they had exchanged apologies soon after. Well, she had at least. He had hugged her. Then he hugged her some more after, once he had pulled her away from Pete's body and back to the TARDIS.

But he hadn't said sorry. He never did, really – not to her. When he apologized it was always intense – some mistake made in the heat of the moment, too late now to undo – a feeble hope that if he was just _sorry, so sorry _enough, it would atone for what he had allowed to go wrong: a family dead, a woman disfigured, a child orphaned.

Yet, terrible as they were, these disasters he could handle, had been handling for hundreds of years. With none of these people – he refused to think of them as nameless, faceless victims – did he have serious debates over Disney movies or spend all day scouring sixty-eighth century London for the best fish-and-chips shop or go dancing all night, slipping off the dance floor when the songs grew too slow. With none of these people did the Doctor worry what it might mean to admit to his own fallibility – at Deffry Vale, on board a fifty-first century spaceship (though the real problem lay in eighteenth-century France), in the kitchen of a Powell Estate flat. To them, he was just _the Doctor_, the man who made people better, a mysterious savior who, by the very brevity of their interaction, could never be knocked off his pedestal. Callous as it sounded, the most he had to lose with them was a few nights' sleep, and he was used to that anyhow.

With Rose, there was much farther to fall. The Doctor hadn't measured the distance, but it wasn't one he wanted to chance; he might regenerate, but he doubted if he would ever be whole again.

Forty-five minutes now.

Sod symbolism.

The Doctor hopped to his feet, drawing the sonic out of one pocket and twirling it between two long fingers. Besides _sorry_, he had no idea what he was going to say, but at least it was better than sitting here, Rose drifting further from him by the millisecond.

"You weren't going to use that, were you?"

Her voice was unexpected, the question even more so and the Doctor started, almost dropping the sonic in the process. "Erm. . . ." Despite everything, there was a part of him that itched to tell her that he wouldn't dream of it, that this was nothing but a nervous habit, picked up from a previous regeneration, and one side of his mouth tilted up in a bashful smile, readying itself for the lie.

Rose sighed. Her eyes were dry, her mouth was a thin line, but the strain in both was evident. The Doctor reached out to wipe a tear-track away with the pad of his thumb before remembering he couldn't.

"Come on. We need to talk anyway." She crossed the room to sit on the sofa he had just vacated, spine as stiff as his own. When she spoke, it was with eyes straight ahead, staring blankly at the stark white wall.

"I don't want you to stay."

"Rose. . . ."

"No. Don't . . . just don't. It's . . . please, Doctor."

"Rose, I'm _sorry_, alright? Sosorry. I should've asked you before telling Jackie and on that spaceship . . . I should _never_ have left you behind. I was an idiot. I'm so sorry. Rose, I'm _so _sorry."

"It's better this way." Still, she stared straight ahead, but the Doctor didn't miss the minute hitch in her breath.

"And - and Sarah!" In his desperation, he all but shouted the name. "I should've told you about Sarah. How I left her. How I've left them all eventually. But I've never - not you, Rose. Never you."

"Yes, me."

"_Not_ you," the Doctor repeated vehemently. "I'm staying."

"For how long?"

Expecting another protest, her reply caught him off guard and the Doctor floundered for a second before managing, "Forever."

"Right. And how long would that be, exactly?"  
"Well, until. . . ." He licked his suddenly-dry lips, tongue stumbling over the word. "Until. . . ."

"Until you get bored of me."

"What? No! That's not – how could you. . . ?"

"What? You'll get some nine-to-five job and I'll go back to work in the shop? We'll get some flat together with, I dunno, windows and cabinets an' things? You'll go mad, Doctor. And I'll go mad seeing you go mad. I can take you leaving, alright, but I can't. . . ." He could see one corner of her lips twitch in a sad, little smile. "Feeling the turn of the world can't be too easy if you stay in one place."

_You _are _my world. _More than that – she was his universe, all wrapped up in a single pink-and-yellow girl. All he needed to do to feel the world turn was hold her hand.

It was a terrible line, straight from the cheesy romance films that the TARDIS kept neatly stacked in the cinema room (no matter how the Doctor tried to hide them), but the cheesiness didn't make it any less true. Nor did the knowledge of this truth make it any easier to say.

"Rose, I have money." The Doctor's heart leapt into his throat as she whipped her head about to face him, fury in her eyes.

"If you think I'm gonna let you steal from cash points whenever you want just so you don't have to work. . . ."

"It's not _stealing_, Rose. It was never stealing. . . ." Her eyes flashed. "No, I didn't mean. . . . It's just – I'm rich, Rose. _Well_, my aliases are. Remember John Smith? He's a world-famous physicist. I have _millions _under him." He beamed at her shocked expression. "We have enough money to last us for decades. You won't need to go back to work in the shop. I won't need to get a job. We can travel the world, just like before. There are so many brilliant places, so much brilliant _humanity_ out there right _now_, Rose Tyler, and I can show you _all _of it."

"No."

The Doctor wasn't sure what he'd expected – for her to cry out in delight and throw her arms around him (if he didn't touch her soon, he might combust) maybe, to tell him he was the most brilliant man in the universe for thinking up such a perfectly simple solution, at the very least a small smile – but it certainly wasn't this.

"No?" he echoed, in complete disbelief. "What do you mean no?"

"It means no." Despite himself, the Doctor's lips twitched; for a moment, her dressing gown and jimjams had been replaced by a leather jacket and dark trousers. (He had caught her once, a few weeks after his regeneration, asleep in the wardrobe room with the jacket draped over her and didn't say a word when it found a spot in her closet.)

"Oh, it'll be brilliant, Rose. You'll see. Have you ever been to a Broadway show? 'Course you haven't, I haven't taken you – sorry, that was a bit rude, wasn't it? But! I'll take you now, how's that? Two tickets, anything you want to see. Opening night – Dr. John Smith and Dame Rose Tyler. Where's your superphone? I can book them on there. Ooh, and the aeroplane tickets, too. Can't forget those." He laughed, loud and long, before catching sight of her expression, something approaching fear in her eyes. Instantly, he quieted. Instantly, he quieted. "What's wrong?"

"What about the TARDIS?"

"What about her?"

"You know what I mean, Doctor. Why are we going by plane when it would take two seconds with the TARDIS?"

"_Well_." The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck. "That's something _I've _always wanted to try, I s'pose. Might be nice to be the passenger instead of the pilot for once."

"Yeah?" Rose's eyes narrowed. "And how many of these little trips are we going to be _passengers _on?"

"It's not like we'd really need the old girl, anyway. She's more for time-and-space travel, not. . . ."

"Not just plain-old-Earth travel, you mean. Can't have us stupid apes messing around with your precious spaceship."

"That's not what I meant and you know it." She had turned away from him again and he reached for her hand, sighing when she pulled it out of reach. "Rose. . . ."

"It's so you're not tempted, isn't it?" she asked, irritation stripped from her tone for the moment to reveal a sudden timidity in its' place. "We can use the superphone and the psychic paper, just not the TARDIS. 'Cause if you do, then you'll just take off again."

"Not without you."

"It will be without me."

"It _won't_." She wasn't quick enough to snatch her hand away this time and he clamped one of his own over it, only loosening his grip when she winced. "Rose, we're going around in circles."

"_We _are? _You're_ the one denying this is even happening."

"And you're the one refusing to listen to perfectly rational. . . ."

"Rational?" Rose cried. "Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? You're acting like we'll travel the world together like nothing's even changed! What about when there's another alien invasion, eh? You're the Doctor, you know, they're bound to follow you."

"Then I'll deal with it. And _you_," he squeezed her hand for emphasis, "will stay with your mother."

Rose rolled her eyes. "And just supposing you _don't _get yourself killed or regenerated or whoosywhatsit, you'll just come back home."

The Doctor smiled. "I'll just come back home."

"And you won't think about that weird artifact we saw at some shop stall in, I dunno, Egypt or Greece or something."

"No."

"You won't think about what year it was dated and what its' planet of origin might be and how much you'd like to go and investigate, but for this silly promise you made to your companion."

"It isn't silly."

"You won't think about how the TARDIS is just - just _sitting_ there, gathering dust, and how much you'd like to be her pilot again."

"_No_, Rose. Why are you trying so hard to convince me this is the wrong thing?"

"Why are you trying so hard to convince me it's the right thing? You aren't _meant _for this, Doctor. And I won't just let you waste your life here. No," she tugged her hand free of his lax hold and held it up, "don't interrupt me. That's what you'll do. You'll waste it. And you'll suffer for it and the universe'll suffer for it. There'll be thousands of people dying, every day, just because I'm too selfish to tell you no."

"It's not your job to take care of them."

"No, but it is yours."

"So I'm not allowed to be a regular, old human bloke, then?" The Doctor attempted a nonchalant tone but, from the pity in her eyes, she didn't miss the silent entreaty in his eyes.

"It's not that you're not _allowed _to be, Doctor. It's that you're not _supposed _to be – not for long, anyway. And, sure, maybe it doesn't matter now, maybe it won't for a year or two years or five years. But one day you'll wake up and realize what you're doing, just hanging around because you feel guilty or like you owe me something for not – not feeling. . . ."

"Not what?"

"And that's fine. I mean, I get it. You're, what – nine-hundred? You were bound to . . . for God's sake, you met Madame de Bloody Pompadour. Just don't feel like you have to stay 'cause of that."

"Because of _what_?"

"I just want it to end on good terms, alright? Not with you hating me."

"I could _never _hate you, Rose."

"Resenting me, then. Point is, if this is the way it's gonna be, I'd rather it end sooner rather than later. Like tearing off a band-aid. It'll just hurt more otherwise. It'll be too real."

"That's because it _will _be real, Rose. We may not be traveling the universe, but we'll still be together." He didn't try to take her hand again, but lay it on the cushion between them. "That's the most real thing there is."

It was also another line from one of her romances, but the Doctor barely registered its significance as Rose, ignoring his extended appendage entirely, buried her face in her hands with a groan.

"Do you even _know _what you're doing?"

"What?"

"You! Making it real. Acting like we're – we're _something _when you don't even – when I _know _you don't even. . . ."

"What makes you think I don't?"

"You made things pretty clear this morning, Doctor."

"Did I?"

"Do you really need me to spell it out for you?"

"I'd appreciate it, yes."

"Mum said I was heartbroken," said Rose. "What does that mean to you?"

"Well, you were upset over Mickey, weren't you? And your mum – well, your parallel world mum, but she _looked _like your mum – and. . . ." He trailed off at Rose's gape-mouthed expression. "Hang on. . . ."

"God, you're thick."

"You're saying. . . ."

"Yes." Rose's cheeks, already flushed, burned still brighter.

"And last night . . . when you asked what your mum told me. _This _was what you meant?"

"Yes." She muttered the reply to her slippered feet, but still managed to add, "I didn't think you'd tell."

"But when I did," he continued doggedly. "you didn't know."

"Yes," she said, glaring down at the carpet. "I was stupid, alright? You don't need to. . . ."

"I _do _need to. And don't call yourself that. You didn't know. Last night, I'm the one who made you think that I. . . ."

"It's alright. Like I said, you didn't mean to."

"No . . . I _did _mean to. I _always _mean to. Rose, you . . . when I argued with your mother it wasn't because I wanted to leave. It was because I couldn't find any other way to stay."

"What?" Even the single syllable was filled with disbelief.

"God, you're thick." He reached out to stroke her cheek, smiling when she didn't pull away, and slowly leaned in to place a whisper of a kiss to the very corner of her mouth.

"So you're saying. . . ."

"Rose Tyler," he planted a second kiss to the opposite corner, "you're stuck with me."

**. . .**

**A/N: **One more chapter after this – for real this time! The Jackie situation will be worked out and there will be fluff galore. :)

Let me know what you thought about this one in a review!


	5. Bon voyage

**A/N: **And here is the (actual) last chapter. :) Hope you enjoy!

_Allons-y!_

**. . .**

**Part Five: Bon voyage**

"So _that's_ the evil cousin?"

"No. That's the ginger lady's brother," Rose gestured towards the screen with a forkful of chicken lo mein before taking a bite. "Jessica or something. He's the one who doesn't know he's dating his long-lost sister. The evil cousin's the blonde one with the nice hair."

"You like his hair?" The Doctor ran a nervous hand through his own brown locks. "I used to be blonde once. . . ."

"S'alright, I suppose." Rose attempted a tongue-touched smile, several noodles slipping out from between her teeth.

"Very picture of etiquette, aren't you?" He passed her a napkin, waiting until she had blotted her mouth before pressing a soft kiss to her lips.

"Mmm, you like it," she murmured back and he hummed in agreement, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her closer.

He _did _like it. Cared quite a bit for it, to be honest. The Doctor was, in fact, quite certain that he could spend the rest of his life snogging Rose Tyler and be perfectly content. Euphoric, even. Whether it be a hotel in Barcelona (the country), or her mum's Powell Estate flat, or even on board the TARDIS; it didn't matter as long as they were together.

"It _will _be in the TARDIS, Doctor."

If not for the brief hardening of her eyes, the stubborn jut of her lower lip, the Doctor would have thought it impossible that, barely twenty-four hours before – one of the longest twenty-four hours of his long life – he had been preparing to leave her life forever, as if excising Rose Tyler from his heart, his mind, his very self, were as simple as all that. He would have preferred to think it impossible, to cram any and all awkward situations and serious discussions and unbreakable silences – those were worse than anything, the hostile words unspoken so heavy in the air they all but choked him – into a tiny box in the back of his mind where no one, including himself, would ever come across them.

But he couldn't forget the kiss: how his lips had hovered hesitantly over hers, centimeters apart, how Rose had pulled him down, closing the infinitesimal void between them. How her fingers felt as they raked through his hair. How her mouth tasted against his talented tongue – traces of that morning's breakfast and toothpaste and the unique taste that was purely _Rose_. How she sounded – God how she _sounded_, there had never been a more brilliant sound in any universe – when he sucked at her bottom lip. So enmeshed was this kiss with everything else – every situation and discussion and silence – that it made it impossible to forget those, either.

It wasn't normal, but the Doctor had learned long ago that, when it came to Rose Tyler, nothing was normal. It was fantastic.

"That's why we're gonna talk to Mum, yeah?"

"Yeah. Yeah, 'course we are." Though his stomach churned at the thought, the Doctor attempted a reassuring smile.

"Together?" she confirmed.

"I promised, didn't I?"

"Yes." Her fingers slipped under his suit-jacket as she cuddled closer, tilting her head to smile up at him and ignoring the ongoing drama of the ginger lady's brother and his long-lost sister. They were taping it, anyway; it was Jackie's favorite. "You did."

He had, over and over, in the seconds and minutes and hours after – promised to spend every bit of time remaining to them making her happy, promised not to make any more decisions for her, promised to speak to her mother. . . . Anything to make her smile when he hadn't seen a real, Rose Tyler-smile from her in such a long time, but they meant no less for all that. If Rose could still look at him like this after everything – the non-apologies and the lies (even by omission) and the betrayals, large and small – if she could somehow still place her trust in him, could still give her entire self to him so unabashedly and unreservedly, then the least he could do was never give him a reason to doubt him again.

But that still didn't stop the Doctor's two hearts from leaping into his throat as Jackie walked in the front door, a heavy handbag slung across her arm and a scowl on her face.

"Evening, Mum," Rose chirped.

Jackie placed her bag on the hall table – _one less weapon_, the Doctor couldn't help but think – before turning back to them and raising her eyebrows. "The picnic didn't happen, I take it."

"Well, no." The Doctor shifted under her unrelenting gaze, abruptly very aware that his hand was brushing the edge of her daughter's breast. "We got takeout instead. Thought it would be – it's still a bit nippy out. Expecting snow next week, after all." Jackie narrowed her eyes and the forced laugh died in his throat.

"We saved you a plate, Mum," Rose volunteered, gathering their leftovers into one container. The Doctor could have kissed her – _would _have kissed her if the elder Tyler woman wasn't currently glaring down at him. "Bit cold now, but the microwave'll warm it right up."

"Ooh, or I can sonic it!" The Doctor delved into his suit pocket, only to have Jackie snatch the box out of his reach.

"I'll do it myself, thanks. Don't want that . . . _thing _giving me cancer."

The Doctor frowned, biting back his harsh retort as Rose squeezed his hand.

"He was just trying to help, Mum. He does it for me all the time."

"Till some strange lump shows up and the _real _doctors can't do a damn thing about it, I'll bet," Jackie huffed, taking her tray into the kitchen. Rose followed her and the Doctor trailed after.

"How was the salon, then?" asked Rose, settling down at the table. "Any nasty old biddies trying to look young?"

Jackie punched numbers into the digital readout with unnecessary vigor; leaning against the far counter, the Doctor fixed his eyes on the revolving takeout box. "You don't have to be mean, Rose."

"_Were _there?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact." Jackie's lips twitched, a smirk sneaking across her features. "And one of them had the nerve to make some bloody backhanded compliment on _my _hair! Doubt she'll be coming back for more – gave her a right nice ginger dye job, I did."

"Ginger?" asked the Doctor, perking up.

"Yep." So caught up in her story, Jackie appeared to have forgotten her annoyance with the Doctor. "Hair looked like a traffic cone by the time I was through. Raring mad, she was. Thought I was gonna get the sack for a second. .. . ."

"Oh, Mum. . . ." Rose clapped a hand to her mouth, looking anxious. "You didn't. . . ."

"No, of course I didn't. Who do you take me for? Bev saw the whole thing and she backed me up to Sandy – that's my manager," she added to the Doctor, "who gave that old crone the runaround."

"Brilliant!" The Doctor beamed. "You don't have some of that dye I can borrow, do you, Jackie?"

"Oh, no, you don't." Rose jabbed an emphatic finger in his direction. "Last time you tried that, your hair turned green, remember?"

"Green?" Jackie cackled.

"Yeah, this really horrible shade, too. Looked like someone had vomited on his head."

"It did not!"

"You said it yourself, Doctor. Told me that you couldn't believe you'd used such primitive human chemicals when they obviously didn't work on Time Lord hair follicles. He had this ridiculous hat that he refused to take off till we found this gross alien goop. And _then _his hair smelled like an animal had died in it for a week or so. . . ."

The Doctor pouted. "I didn't hear you complaining when that smell scared off the tribe of Ursinios. Humanoid-bear crosses," he added to Jackie, "usually harmless, but your daughter here decided to run off and make friends with one of the cubs when I _explicitly_ told her. . . ."

"I thought he was lost! Offered to help him find his parents. _You're _the one who came charging in like I was about to be mauled."

"I didn't know where you'd gone, what was I supposed to do?"

From the corner of his eye, the Doctor caught Jackie's wince, and couldn't help but flinch himself, wondering how their friendly conversation had devolved into regaling Jackie Tyler with yet another of their dangerous adventures.

"I dunno – maybe _not _come in all Oncoming Storm. . . ."

He shot Rose a quelling look before turning to smile, rather sycophantically, at Jackie. It was a smile she didn't return.

"That's the scar on your arm," she said, and Rose tugged nervously at the edge of her pajama top. "Those Ursinials."

The Doctor forced himself not to correct her.

"Mum. . . ."

"Why didn't I hear about this?"

"Mum, they didn't. . . ."

"It wasn't them, Jackie." The Doctor remembered that scar – remembered it just like he remembered every time he hadn't been quick enough, smart enough, observant enough – a sword's blow to her shoulder when they landed in the middle of a sixteenth-century skirmish. He had rushed her back to the TARDIS – half-hearted amputation jokes made along the way to make her laugh, because laughing was such a Rose Tyler-ish thing to do, even in the midst of battle, if she was laughing then there was no other option than for her to be fine – but had been too late to prevent any scarring.

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Jackie snapped. "Hearing that _oh, it's not this, Mum _but it's just something else you haven't told me? Another time you lied to me?"

"We were going to tell you, Mum. We just. . . ."

"Oh, don't you lie to me, Rose Tyler. The things you get up to _here _are bad enough. D'you expect me to believe the same doesn't happen a million years in the future?"

"Well, no. But. . . ."

"Because all I ever hear about is how he took you on some picnic or how you went to some concert." Jackie scoffed. "Did Elvis give you that scar, then?"

Rose flushed, blinking rapidly as she swiped at her eyes with one shaking hand. The Doctor crossed to her side, squeezing her shoulder.

"We took care of things, Jackie. It wasn't – we didn't think. . . ."

"Damn right you didn't think! You've lied before, Rose – but about _this_? About your own _life_?"

"It wasn't about lying, Mum." Rose entwined the fingers of one hand with the Doctor's, and he squeezed it, running a thumb across her palm over and over, setting a soothing rhythm. "We didn't want to scare you."

"And you didn't think I'd be scared either way? You think I didn't notice you showing up with bruises up and down your legs?" (The Doctor remembered that one, too – a late-night capture for an unknown offense, an overzealous prison guard binding her far too tightly; he had been only too pleased to return the favor when they had escaped.) "A few of the neighbors wondered if _he_. . . ."

The Doctor's eyes flashed. "I would _never_. . . ."

"Oh, I know you wouldn't." Jackie waved a hand. "Told them so myself, didn't I? Said that my Rose wouldn't stay with someone like that. Not after Jimmy."

Rose's eyes dropped to the tabletop, the fingers of her free hand tracing the uneven grain, and the Doctor frowned, concerned. It was the second mention of the name in as many days. He filed the name away for future reference.

"But, sweetheart – after that, after _him_. . . . I thought we were done with the lying. I thought you knew you could come to me."

"I meant to, Mum . . . I _wanted _to. . . ."

"And now you expect me to just let you go again, to pretend like it's no big deal when you come home a mess."

"Because it _isn't_! That's why I couldn't tell you, I knew you'd react like this!"

"How else would you expect me to? You're my _daughter_. I can't just sit around and see you get hurt. I won't do it, Rose."

"And I won't stop." Seeming surprised by her own daring, Rose's eyes widened, and she took a deep breath before continuing. "I'm sorry, Mum, but I can't. Not after I've seen what's out there, seen the differenceI can make. The difference _we _can make." Her fingers tightened around the Doctor's. "I'm sorry, but this life . . . it isn't _me _anymore. It hasn't been for a long time, I think."

Jackie didn't say a word for a moment, but glanced from one to the other, expression inscrutable.

"This is what you want?"

"Yes." The Doctor answered without hesitation. It wasn't until Rose twisted in her seat to face him, the beginnings of a smile tugging at her lips as she repeated his reply, that he realized who the question had been meant for.

"Yes," she said again, turning back to her mother. "Yes."

Jackie closed her eyes, and the Doctor could hear her breath shuddering in her chest; when she opened them again, they were hard as flint. "You tell me what happened next time."

"We will," said Rose.

The Doctor nodded.

"I don't care if you think it'll scare me. I'm not being left out of the loop anymore."

"We _will_, Mum," Rose repeated.

The Doctor nodded.

"And take care of her," she said. "I mean it this time."

"I will," said the Doctor.

"You'd better." Jackie's lips twitched in something approaching a smile. "Or you'll have earned yourself another slap."

**. . .**

"Do you think she meant it?" he asked later, perched on the edge of Rose's bed as she stuffed her newly-laundered clothing into dresser-drawers. They were bigger on the inside, just like the rest of the TARDIS, but clothing still spilled out of them. He smiled fondly.

Rose gave him an odd look over the hem of a green vest top before throwing it in with he rest. "'Course she meant it. You heard her – she doesn't want to be lied to any more. She probably told you more about it than me," she added, somewhat bitterly.

"No, not that – I mean. . . ." The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck. "The slap. Do you think. . . ."

"What do you. . . ? Doctor." Rose grinned. "Are you scared of my mum?"

"I wouldn't say _scared_. More . . . _wary of_."

"Uh-huh. So you can face down Daleks and Cybermen without batting an eye, but you're _wary of _my mum."

"She's a formidable woman, Rose. And that slap _hurt_. Believe me when I say I have no desire to repeat the experience."

"And that slap rates above extermination, does it?"

"Well, now you're just making fun of me." The Doctor pouted, slipping off the bed to join her and pelting a pair of balled-up socks at her head.

"No, I'm not."

"Really."

"Really." Her pout was far more persuasive and, sighing, the Doctor wrapped his arms around her, tilting his head down to press a kiss to her upturned lips.

"All I'm saying is maybe we should take things slow is all. Not go rushing into danger, especially after – well, everything."

"Mmm."

"And I've been meaning to take you to a concert for ages. 'Specially after Ian Dury fell through. How's Elvis sound?"

"Mmm."

"1950s New York? Quiffed hair for me, poodle skirt for you?" He placed his hands on either side of her hips, fingertips lightly grazing her bum. "I must say, Rose Tyler, I like the idea of that."

"Mmm."

"Yes?"

She grinned against his chest. "You are _so _scared of Mum."

The Doctor groaned. "You're really not going to let this go, are you?"

"Nope."

"Would it appease you if I said I was? Because, you know, I might be. A little, teeny-tiny bit."

"Now was that so hard?" She pecked his cheek.

"Very. What's that psychobabble – all there is to fear is fear itself? And I just admitted my greatest fear was Jacqueline Tyler."

"She'll be pleased to hear that."

The Doctor tutted. "And now you're making fun of me again. Rose, it will take me some time to get over this great, emotional step I just took." He punctuated each word with a kiss.

"Really."

"Yes." He trailed kisses down her neck. "I'll need quite a bit of care-taking. Like this." He nibbled at her ear lobe. "_Very_ therapeutic."

"Doctor's orders?"

Disentangling the ties of his Converse from the straps of a black, lace bra, the Doctor rolled Rose over onto her back, hovering hungrily over her.

"Quite."

**. . .**

**A/N: **Woo, finally finished! This fic turned out to be a lot more than I initially thought it would, but I really enjoyed writing it and want to thank anyone who reviewed or favorited or even spent a few minutes of their day reading it. I may not get paid for this, but seeing that my writing can make people happy makes it worthwhile. :)

I will be going back to **Domestics **after this as I have many, many different ideas for future chapters and there are a few one-shots that are taking up space in my head as well. One is a Doctor-Donna friendship fic and the other will be a companion to **The Girl Who Was Tired of Waiting**, about the Metacrisis and Rose after JE. So be on the lookout for those!


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